


The Ides of Oz Drabble Tree

by trillingstar



Series: Oz Drabble Trees [10]
Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Double Drabble, Episode Related, F/M, Gen, Holidays, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Oz Drabble Tree, Weather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 09:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1423819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trillingstar/pseuds/trillingstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two double drabbles for Tree #12 @ <a href="http://oz-wishing-well.livejournal.com">oz_wishing_well</a>.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ides of Oz Drabble Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Jump phrase in bold.  
> 

  
1\. Gloria/Ryan. **comparison** , 200 words.

How does a man prove his worth? His love?

Start with **comparison** s: this is how your husband didn't believe in you, broke his promises, abandoned you.

Look to your new man now. Watch him remind you how patient he is, how loyal, what he'll endure for a single glance from you. See how he'll wrap himself up in your smile. Listen to him tell you he'd never break your heart.

Doesn't matter if you believe it. He believes it.

First to go, your lying, spineless ex-husband, marriage still a tender disappointment aching in your chest. Then your rapist and his plague, his fetid breath, your flesh rotten wherever he touched, who made your brain spin and spin and crackle out.

You have every right to be furious. Horrified, revolted. Relieved.

The joy is a surprise, a fierce exultation that buoys you, indulging a primal happiness that can't be shared. Your man killed for you. For _you_. Because you were trapped and hurt and sad, and because it's the only way he knows to prove how much he wants to love you.

You can't leave him. Like him, you're loyal.

For better or for worse, you're in for life. You're free.  
  
  
  
2\. Toby Beecher. **martyr** , 200 words.

Inside, Toby knew the season by the string of holiday visits: Christmas, Valentine's, Saint Patrick's -- one of his old favorites, a long weekend spent celebrating the thirtysomething American lush through green food coloring -- and Easter, commemorated with sudden religious fervor and cheap-tasting chocolate.

The weather report on the bank of televisions got lots of daily attention, inmates concerned about high-pressure fronts moving across the seaboard and debating record-setting national highs. It was weird until the first time Toby missed being outdoors, the freshness following a thunderstorm, or a brisk fall wind that had him reaching for a coat; now it's his newest addiction, reveling in the delineation between daytime and night that'd been absent during his incarceration.

It's practically disorienting, the sunshine, flooding bright and welcome through the windows of Toby's apartment all day long. Inside meant washed-out light filtered through pebbled Plexiglas windows, colors faded to whites and grays, never knowing if the sun had set at six or ten o'clock. Inside felt timeless. Artificial. A chunk of his life broken off, tucked away.

When Toby stepped through the prison gates, he was ready to forget all of it. The light purified him. He was no **martyr**.  


  


**Author's Note:**

> Written for [The Ides of Oz Drabble Tree](http://oz-wishing-well.livejournal.com/36536.html). There are 58 other drabbles to be read -- what a great tree! :)  
> 


End file.
